By DarkSkyLady
Communism and Invasion of the Body Snatchers, STDs and It Follows, appropriation of Black people/culture, and Get Out - social issues and horror films go together like blood on a knife. Scary movies are the perfect avenue to engage with an audience while highlighting issues, societal fears, and prejudices. When done well, it can spark a discussion and invite a call for justice without soapbox preachiness. Or be a cautionary tale of a dreadful future. Two films that premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 2022, Nanny and Master, use horror to address the terror and stress that existing in a white supremacist society causes.
Microaggressions and gaslighting are everyday experiences among marginalized communities. The amount increases at intersections of oppression. For the protagonists in both films (Aisha from Nanny and Gail and Jasmine from Master), the supernatural horror of spirits and nightmares takes a back seat to the inescapable white horror of microaggressions, racism, biases, and harassment. Gail and Jasmine in Master try to navigate the education system in a majority white institution, while in Nanny, Aisha works as the titular nanny to a white family in New York in order to bring her son from Senegal.
In Master, the microaggressions start immediately for Jasmine (Zoe Renee), as the white woman at the college check-in laughs when she realizes that Jasmine got the room. She then debates with the other white student helpers whether they should tell Jasmine what is so funny. It is as though Black women do not exist in the face of whiteness. The discomfort puts Jasmine at a disadvantage that increases steadily throughout the film. When drinking with her roommate and their friends, alcohol spills on the floor; they ask Jasmine to clean it up. The horror in Master is, on its face, supernatural elements - the creepy story of a witch who claims a first-year student each year, the maggots. However, the film's true terror is Black women's invisibility, simultaneous hypervisibility, and the toll it takes.
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